Following a spate of robberies, chain snatching and mobile snatching incidents on Sunday night, the Chennai police on Monday night the Chennai police launched an operation on Monday night. Around 3000 people were detained on various charges during the time.

Quoting police sources, the United News of India said reported that patrolling was intensified in the city as a part of the operation.

Special teams of the Chennai police conducted vehicle checks and raids in around 740 hotels and lodges in order to arrest history-sheeters, against whom they had non-bailable warrants.

As many as 1325 criminals and 1125 history sheeters were detained. The police also detained 300 people on “suspicious grounds”. 32 others against whom the police had non-bailable warrants were arrested on Monday night.

On Sunday night, Chennai bore witness to 14 chain snatching incidents and four robberies in various parts of the city.

Incidents were reported from Arumbakkam, Koyambedu, Kilpauk, Mannadi, Ashok Nagar, Thirumangalam, Taramani and Virugambakkam. However, police attribute this sudden spike to the increased rate of reporting of crimes to the police.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one senior police officer had told TNM, “On paper, the crime rates are not much higher than last year. This (chain snatching) has been happening for a long time now. This has been hyped up all of a sudden. Every instance of robbery is being filed.”

According to one report in the Times of India, the police asked victims to submit complaints as ‘lost’ objects, as opposed to registering cases of robbery. According to lawyers and former bureaucrats, the reason for this was that the Tamil Nadu Assembly is in session. In order to avoid the opposition raising the crime rates as a reason for the government’s failure, the police reportedly refused to register instances of robbery.

Read: 4 robberies, 14 chain snatching instances in Chennai in just a few hours

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